'Butler' worth seeing

WELLFLEET — The butler didn't do it. In fact, he's nowhere to be found in Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw." Although amid the zany goings-on, banging doors, undressing and clothes-switching, you might not be surprised if he popped up wearing a leopard-print dress, a policeman's uniform, scanty underwear or a white coat. Everyone else does.

The white coat is a clue: "Butler" takes place in a psychiatric clinic. So you'd expect things to be crazy, but it's not the patients — like the butler, they're nowhere to be seen. Rather, it is the psychiatrist, his wife, his prospective secretary, a government medical inspector, a bellhop and yes, a bobby, who are the loony ones.

This wacky romp takes over the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater stage until mid-July, so if you want to escape into a mad, mad world, it's worth the ticket. Laughter, Orton seems to be saying, is the best medicine.

"Butler" is a classic farce, first produced in London in 1969 when the sexual revolution was in full swing and before political correctness went into action. Orton had a short life as a playwright (including "Loot" and "Entertaining Mr. Sloane") before he was murdered by his lover in 1967.

But there's no such tragedy in his play. Just absurdity, riotous gadding about and characters who think nothing of taking off their clothes when they apply for a job, attempt blackmail or investigate a crime. All at the request of Doctor Prentice, who runs the asylum. It begins with him asking Geraldine Barclay, who's applying for a job as his secretary, to undress. When she consents, you know reality has been suspended and madness is in motion. While the innocent Geraldine is behind the examining curtain, Mrs. Prentice, who has lost her dress in a sexual scuffle at the local hotel, arrives. And there's Geraldine's dress to the rescue. The clothes-switching and outrageous antics proceed from there.

At the base of all this insanity is Orton's clever and witty script, full of double-entendres, contradictions and Freudian slips. It's all very complicated, but you will hear declarations like these: It's irrational to try to be rational in an irrational world. Or: Just when you least expect it the unexpected happens.

David Wheeler, a veteran director with the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge and a number of other resident companies who also has worked on Broadway, orchestrates this manic flight of fancy with an eye on the necessity of impeccable timing. The first act could use a little fine-tuning, but, by the second act, the pace picks up with doors slamming, guns going off and characters dashing in and out in various stages of dress and undress.

Wheeler has assembled a sparkling cast of Equity actors who churn up the chaos with delight.

Michael Balcanoff is the eccentric psychiatrist who is at the root of all the trouble until the medical inspector, Doctor Rance, takes over. Whereas Balcanoff uses large, funny gestures to define the idiosyncrasies of his character, Richard McElvain, as Rance, gives a more subtle performance — raised eyebrows, sidelong glances and funny grimaces — which makes you believe he's the craziest one of all.

Lordan Napoli plays the innocent Geraldine with wide-eyed wonder, which is a counterpoint to the tumult that surrounds her.

As Mrs. Prentice, Meg Gibson keeps the tempo high, running in and out of one door or another (there are four) trying to uncover her husband's peccadilloes and cover up her own.

Lewis D. Wheeler is quite funny as the bellhop, who has accosted Mrs. Prentice and is trying to blackmail her with explicit photos of her in compromising positions. He's the one who dons the leopard-print dress first. After he discards it, the policeman, nimbly played by Adam Harrington, slips into it.

Almost everyone gets into the clothes-switching act.

Eugene Lee's set design of the doctor's office and examining room is built with plenty of openings — all those doors — to allow for all that dashing about.

Orton has devised a pat ending, and all's well that ends well. But the fun is in the romp — and the playwright's smart dialogue, which 40 years later hasn't lost its kick.

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